As many as 10,000 people took part in the Stand for Truth rally yesterday, and marched in
complete silence to the site of the last Magdalene Laundry to close on Sean MacDermott
street[video]. In effect this was a counter protest to the Papal Rally taking place
uptake road in the Phoenix park in the aftermath of Pope Francis pretending not to know
about the institutions while talking to selected survivors. In fact he met Philomena Lee
in the Vatican in 2014, the Irish Times reporting at the time that afterwards, Ms Lee
said: "I hope and believe that his Holiness Pope Francis joins me in the fight to help the
thousands of mothers and children who need closure on their own stories."
Some 30,000 were confined in these institutions, most often for the ‘crime' of having
child without being married. Another 100,000 people were sent to other institutions run
by the church like the industrial schools, yesterdays event also stood with them in
demanding real accountability for the crimes that the church committed, and for the cover
up that goes right to the top of the Catholic Church, including the current forgetful pope.

If the Papal visit was meant to help the recovery of a totally discredited catholic church
it can be described as a disaster that only revealed how few practising catholics remain
in Ireland. During the previous Palpal visit in 1979 one million people attended the
Papal rally in Dublin alone, yesterday saw barely 10% of that number attend and many of
those were international tourists. In '79 Papal bunting was everywhere, yesterday the
council built estates bordering the park has almost no houses displaying any, our writer
counted only two in an estate of 250 houses (and twice as many that still had Dublin GAA
bunting up from the match a couple of weeks back). On Saturday Dublin was brought to a
halt so that the Pope could parade through the city, they said 100,000 were expected to
view him. In the event only about 15,000 lined the route and how many of them were in
town anyway and finding themselves trapped by barriers decided they might as well watch
the spectacle and post a selfie.

The Catholic Church which on the weekends evidence can now only claim to represent, at
best, 10% of the population still owns many of the schools, hospitals and community
spaces in the country. They have failed to pay significant compensation for the decades
of abuse they subjected the 130,000 to. It's high time the schools, hospitals and
community spaces were taken into public ownership, without further compensation.